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THE  SOUTH: 


A    LETTER 


F  R  O  M 


A  FRIEND  IN  THE  NORTH 


WITH 


SPECIAL   REFERENCE 

TO    THE    EFFECTS    OF 

DISUNION  UPON  SLAVERY. 
,  £^£*~  ^ 

I 


PHILADELPHIA : 

PRINTED   FOR   THE   AUTHOR, 

BY   C.  SHERMAN   &   SON. 

1856. 


e  T 

C-7 


THE  SOUTH. 


A  NATIVE  of  Virginia,  long  resident  in  Pennsylva 
nia,  I  have  for  nearly  thirty  years  been  an  attentive 
listener  to  the  various  discussions  which  have  arisen 
between  the  South  and  the  North.  The  class  to  which 
I  belong  is  perhaps  better  able  to  keep  balanced  minds 
on  some  of  those  exciting  topics  than  those  who  are 
more  immediately  engaged  —  better  than  natives  of 
the  North  or  residents  of  the  South.  It  seems  to  me 
much  more  rare  too  for  the  natives  of  the  South,  to 
lose  their  sympathies  with  the  place  of  their  birth, 
than  for  those  who  go  from  the  North  to  reside  in  the 
South.  I  feel  quite  sure  that  I  have  not  lost  my 
capacity,  nor  my  disposition  to  weigh  calmly,  all  the 
questions  which  pertain  to  Southern  interests  or  in 
stitutions.  I  send  you  the  gathered  thought  of  some 
twenty  years  on  the  relations  of  South  and  North,  as 
they  apply  to  what  seems  to  be  the  present  condition 
of  these  controversies.  I  send  them  to  you.  not  as 
argument  nor  as  information,  but  as  suggestions. 

The  subject  of  Slavery  is  of  course  the  main  topic. 
I  can  well  remember  the  feeling  of  indignation  and 
sorrow  with  which  I  beheld  the  rising  cloud  of  Aboli 
tionism.  When  no  larger  than  a  man's  hand,  it  had 
a  look  of  mischief,  which  its  history  has  more  than 

(3) 


4  RISE    OF    ABOLITIONISM. 

verified.  It  has  more  sins  to  answer  for  than  any 
excitement  which  has  yet  prevailed  in  this  country. 
It  found  the  whole  people  of  the  United  States  opposed 
to  slavery.  It  was  rare  to  find  an  intelligent  man  in 
all  the  Southern  States,  whose  sentiments  on  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery  differed  from  those  of  Washington, 
Jefferson,  and  Madison.  Now,  thousands  upon  thou 
sands  profess  to  be  the  advocates  of  the  institution 
for  its  own  social  value,  and  the  whole  South  is  said 
to  be  arrayed  as  one  man  in  its  defence,  upon  its  own 
merits.  But  this  is  not  all.  The  rabid  fanatics  of 
the  North  have  goaded  the  South  until  they  have 
roused  a  class  of  fanatics  there,  not  less  mischievous 
nor  less  disposed  to  assume  dangerous  responsibilities 
than  those  of  the  North.  The  reciprocal  action  of 
these  two  classes  of  fanatics,  with  passions  far  out 
weighing  their  judgments,  has  now  produced  a  state 
of  things  fraught  with  no  little  danger  to  the  whole 
country.  While  Northern  fanaticism  chiefly  claimed 
our  attention,  I  thought  nothing  of  the  kind  could  be 
more  revolting  and  detestable;  but  I  confess  to  a 
change  of  mind;  for  the  fanaticism  of  the  South  has 
outdone  that  of  the  North.  The  Northern  lights 
may  well  retire  from  the  contest,  for  they  have  con 
jured  up  a  spirit  which  threatens  to  accomplish  their 
worst  aims  more  rapidly  than  any  efforts  of  theirs. 
They  have  apparently  succeeded  in  bringing  on  that 
madness  which  precedes  destruction. 

I  do  not  doubt  that  in  the  order  of  Providence 
Slavery  is  a  path  from  savage  to  civilized  life.  The 
history  of  the  world  abounds  in  proofs  of  this.  In 
the  dawn  of  history,  the  masses  were  slaves.  It  was 
so  at  the  advent  of  Christianity;  no  progress  had 


THE    TRUE    PRINCIPLE    OF    SLAVERY.        5 

then  been  made  in  emancipation.  Christianity  recog 
nised  the  relation,  and  pointed  out  the  duties  of  both 
master  and  slave.  It  did  not  assail  the  relation,  it 
did  not  rudely  and  instantly  sever  it,  but  it  certainly 
did  lay  very  heavy  responsibilities  upon  the  con 
science  of  the  master.  It  required  him  to  do  for  his 
slaves  all  that  was  in  his  power;  to  train  them  to 
industry,  to  habits  of  labor,  to  skill  in  husbandry, 
and  other  arts  of  life ;  to  make  them  willing  and  to 
fit  them  for  eating  their  bread  in  the  sweat  of  their 
brows ;  to  rescue  them  from  savage  life,  to  civilize 
and  Christianize  them,  and  to  do  this  as  soon  as  prac 
ticable,  whether  it  required  one  or  more  generations 
of  time.  The  master  is  the  patriarch  of  his  people 
—  they  are  his  children;  he  is  their  guardian;  they 
his  wards.  The  question  of  emancipation  must  un 
doubtedly  arise  soon  or  late,  and  be  studied  in  the 
light  of  the  best  interests  of  both  parties.  The  slave 
on  his  part  must  pay  for  this  care  and  guardianship; 
he  must  pay  for  his  lessons  and  habits  of  industry ; 
he  must  pay  for  his  advancement  to  civilization  :  for 
the  savage  or  the  mere  denizen  of  the  forest  or  wilds 
of  nature,  can  never  be  trained  to  industry  and  civi 
lization  but  under  some  degree  of  compulsion.  Seldom 
have  any  emerged  from  this  condition  but  under  the 
power  of  discipline.  Whether  the  children  of 
Africa  are  better  as  they  were,  or  as  they  are  in  this 
country,  it  is  not  difficult  to  decide,  even  as  things 
now  are ;  but  if  the  masters  in  this  country  were 
doing  their  whole  duty,  who  but  an  abolitionist  would 
not  desire  to  see  every  uncivilized  African  in  such 
bondage  ?  Who  can  deny  that  American  slaves  are 
in  a  condition  immeasurably  better  than  the  natives 


6  PREMATURE    EMANCIPATION. 

of  Africa,  who  murder  and  enslave  each  other  with 
out  mercy  and  without  a  particle  of  advantage  ?  The 
native  Africans  around  Liberia,  look  upon  the  citizens 
of  that  republic  as  a  superior  order  of  beings. 

Emancipation  is  a  question  which  belongs  to  the 
master:  he  is  made  the  judge,  and  on  him  rests  the 
responsibility.  It  is  a  serious  question.  The  slaves 
are  neither  to  be  retained  too  long,  nor  turned  adrift 
too  soon.  He  is  bound  to  prepare  them  for  freedom, 
for  usefulness,  for  all  the  duties  of  civilized  life.  He 
must  not  emancipate  them  to  make  their  condition 
worse,  no  more  than  a  parent  may  send  his  children 
into  the  world  without  due  training  and  preparation. 
Under  the  influences  of  Christianity,  but  without 
comprehending  its  true  spirit,  which  requires  more 
of  the  master  than  emancipation,  vast  numbers  of 
slaves  were  unwisely,  because  prematurely,  emanci 
pated  during  the  first  three  or  four  centuries  of  Chris 
tianity.  The  multitudes  thus  unhappily  turned  adrift 
in  masses,  fell  below  the  condition  of  slavery,  and 
the  disadvantage  followed  their  descendants  for  ages; 
in  the  opinion  of  some,  it  still  follows  them.  It  is 
well  known,  that  the  wholesale  and  indiscreet  eman 
cipations  from  feudal  bondage,  which  took  place  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  landed  those  bondmen  in 
irrecoverable  pauperism.  It  is  stated  by  some  au 
thorities,  that  72,000  were  hung  in  the  reign  of  that 
monarch ;  hundreds  of  thousands  of  them  became 
hopeless  vagabonds.  Their  condition  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  gave  origin  to  the  first  act  in  the  system 
of  the  compulsory  poor-latys  of  England  —  a  code  in 
many  of  its  features  more,  far  more  revolting  in  its 
spirit  and  tendencies  than  our  system  of  slavery;  a 


THE    DUTIES    OF    MASTERS.  7 

code  which  long  subsequently  gave  birth  to  Malthus's 
theory  of  population,  an  idea  far  more  unchristian 
than  had  ever  found  favor  among  the  holders  of 
slaves  in  a  Christian  land.  Emancipation  is  indeed 
a  serious  question ;  for  upon  its  decision  hangs  the 
welfare  of  the  man  and  his  descendants  for  many, 
many  generations.  The  ownership  of  slaves  is  a 
grave  position,  involving  a  guardianship  of  the  high 
est  order.  No  man  would  venture  upon  it  who  real 
ized  its  duties.  He  upon  whom  Providence  has  placed 
it,  may  not  rashly,  nor  unwisely,  nor  to  the  injury 
of  his  slaves,  cast  it  off,  either  by  sale,  or  by  deser 
tion,  or  by  emancipation.  He  must  do  his  whole 
duty  to  those  who  are  placed  in  his  charge.  The 
power  of  the  master  is  intended  for  the  good  of  the 
slave,  and  the  responsibilities  are  proportioned  to 
his  opportunities  of  doing  them  good.  No  despot 
or  ruler  has  more  power  for  the  benefit  of  his  sub 
jects,  than  the  master  for  the  good  of  his  slaves. 
The  position  demands  the  high  qualities  of  firmness, 
intelligence,  wisdom,  patience,  and  kindness.  It  is  a 
noble  position  when  these  qualities  are  brought  to 
the  discharge  of  its  duties.  What  one  master  is 
bound  to  do,  all  are  bound  to  do ;  and  in  this  we  see 
the  mission  of  the  masters  in  the  United  States. 
They  have  the  training,  education,  and  civilization 
of  three  or  four  millions  of  Africans  on  their  hands; 
and,  however  short  they  may  have  fallen  of  perform 
ing  their  duties,  it  must  be  admitted,  that  very  few 
masters  in  modern  times  have  fulfilled  them  better. 
Let  the  slaves  of  the  United  States  be  compared  with 
those  of  any  other  land.  Compare  them  with  the 
freedmen  of  Jamaica,  or  the  masses  of  St.  Domingo. 


8          SLAVERY    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

We  do  not  believe  that  so  many  millions  of  slaves 
in  as  low  a  condition  at  the  beginning,  were  ever 
before  so  rapidly  advanced  towards  civilization  and 
self-dependence.  I  believe,  however,  that  this  great 
and  good  work  might,  by  a  wiser  management  and  a 
more  full  realization  of  duty  on  the  part  of  masters, 
have  been  at  least  one  generation  more  advanced  than 
it  is.  In  less  than  one  hundred  years,  under  proper 
treatment,  the  whole  slave  population  might  be  made 
to  deserve  —  to  earn  their  freedom,  and  be  placed  in 
a  respectable  state  of  civilization,  refinement,  and 
education,  so  as  to  maintain  a  fair  position  in  our 
Republic  or  any  other.  That  depends  on  the  masters 
now  and  hereafter,  and  perhaps  on  their  being  per 
mitted  to  discharge  their  own  duties  unmolested  by 
those  who  in  this  matter  neither  acknowledge  the 
ways  of  Providence,  nor  appreciate  the  duties  of  a 
master. 

The  holders  of  slaves  in  the  United  States,  have 
labored  under  many  peculiar  disadvantages  in  an 
economical  point  of  view.  They  have  complained 
bitterly  of  many  things  for  some  scores  of  years.  It 
is  evident  they  have  been  ill  at  ease.  I  think  they 
early  mistook  the  nature  of  their  troubles.  There 
have  been  peculiar  events  in  the  progress  of  American 
slavery,  some  of  which  require  to  be  appreciated  to 
understand  its  present  condition.  One  of  these  is  its 
extraordinary  dispersion  over  an  immense  extent  of 
territory  —  a  diffusion  not  itself  the  result  of  design, 
but  a  direct  consequence  of  the  purchase  of  Louis 
iana.  The  fertile  lands  of  that  great  region  attract 
ed  immediately  a  very  large  emigration  of  the  holders 
of  slaves  who  had  worn  out  their  lands  in  Virginia, 


ITS    WIDE    DISPERSION.  9 

in  the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia.  This  emigration  of 
masters  and  slaves,  continuing  as  it  did  without  abate 
ment  for  many  years,  produced  memorable  results. 
An  immense  quantity  of  land  was  thrown  upon  the 
market  in  those  States.  This  was  especially  the  case 
in  Virginia  and  South  Carolina.  Improved  lands  fell 
there  to  a  third,  fourth,  or  fifth  of  their  former  value. 
Many  of  the  rich  proprietors,  not  anticipating  this 
depreciation,  were  impoverished  by  purchasing  lands 
constantly  falling  in  value.  But  they  found  to  their 
cost,  that  their  thousands  of  acres  were  soon  of  little 
more  value  than  hundreds  had  been.  Surely  this 
was  a  heavy  misfortune,  a  destruction  of  wealth 
which  could  not  but  be  felt  deeply  and  widely.  The 
men  who  emigrated  did  well,  those  who  remained 
suffered.  One  compensation  they  had  —  the  price 
of  slaves  was  doubled,  and  a  great  demand  ensued. 
But  for  this,  universal,  unmitigated  ruin  would  have 
fallen  upon  the  old  States,  or  entire  emigration  would 
have  become  a  necessity.  I  do  not  believe,  however, 
that  the  increased  value  of  the  slaves  ever  reached 
half  the  amount  of  the  depreciation  of  the  lands. 

All  this,  however  injurious  to  the  masters  and  to 
the  States  of  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  was  a  benefit 
to  the  slave  and  to  the  country  at  large.  The  more 
diffused  the  slave  population,  the  better  for  the  slave. 
Compare  the  slaves  of  Kentucky  and  Maryland  with 
those  of  Louisiana  and  South  Carolina.  This  rise  in 
the  value  of  slaves,  was  regarded  as  a  boon  and  set- 
off  to  the  loss  on  the  land.  It  gave  a  great  impulse, 
however,  to  the  internal  slave  trade ;  it  divided  the 
slave  families  and  hardened  the  hearts  of  the  masters, 
who  were  unfortunately  placed  in  the  position  of 


10         UNHAPPY    RESULTS    OF    SLAVERY. 

having  no  other  property  so  saleable  as  slaves.  No 
doubt  the  result  of  this  state  of  things,  continued  for 
years,  had  unhappy  consequences  both  on  masters 
and  slaves;  the  latter  being  more  regarded  merely 
in  the  light  of  property,  and  less  entitled  to  those 
higher  cares  and  attentions  which  no  slave-owner  can 
neglect  without  guilt.  Too  many  became  mere 
breeders  of  slaves  for  distant  markets.  Whilst  diffu 
sion  had  its  benefits  for  those  slaves  who  were  carried 
away,  it  had  its  evils  for  those  who  remained.  The 
sale  of  slaves  drew  off  the  Attention  of  masters  in  a 
considerable  degree  from  those  departments  of  in 
dustry  suitable  for  slaves  —  a  dereliction  injurious 
alike  to  slave  and  master. 

The  social  and  industrial  economy  of  these  States 
was  by  this  whole  operation  exceedingly  deranged. 
A  large  portion  of  the  white  population  suffered 
severely,  and  large  quantities  of  improved  lands  went 
back  to  a  state  of  nature.  It  is  probable  that,  in  a 
national  point  of  view,  the  increased  value  of  new 
lands  has  more  than  compensated  for  the  loss  on  the 
old ;  but  revolutions  in  value,  if  rapid  like  these,  are 
disasters  of  no  small  magnitude.  For  these  troubles 
the  North  is  in  no  degree  accountable. 

The  North  is  not  accountable  for  the  loss  which 
follows  that  wasteful  sj^stem  of  agriculture  which  is 
almost  universally  pursued  at  the  South,  of  exhaust 
ing  the  land  as  rapidly  as  possible.  This  improvi 
dence  is  that  of  the  spendthrift  using  his  capital  in 
stead  of  his  income.  It  is  a  serious  economical  evil, 
and  has  inflicted  much  injury  upon  the  master  and 
slave.  The  slave  is  thus  trained  in  a  bad  school. 
The  master,  not  sufficiently  enlightened  to  under- 


INDUSTRIAL    MISMANAGEMENT.  11 

stand  his  own  interests,  can  never  do  justice  to  his 
slaves.  The  labor  of  slaves  thrown  away,  or  not 
well  directed,  is  an  injustice  to  the  slave  who  is  serv 
ing  his  master  to  earn  freedom  and  civilization  for 
himself.  The  product  of  English  agriculture  has 
doubled  in  thirty  years;  that  of  nearly  the  whole 
continent  of  Europe  is  improving.  The  owners  of 
our  slaves  are  bound  by  these  important  considera 
tions,  to  keep  even  with  the  foremost  in  agricultural 
improvement;  it  is  a  sacred  duty  which  they  owe  to 
their  slaves. 

The  masters  have  committed  a  great  industrial  mis 
take,  in  devoting  themselves  too  exclusively  to  special 
staples.  Tobacco,  cotton,  rice,  sugar  —  to  one  or  the 
other  of  these,  they  have  generally  devoted  all  their 
minds  and  all  their  labor.  This  has  proved  equally 
injurious  to  the  planter  and  his  people.  It  has  ruined 
the  land  and  kept  down  its  value ;  it  has  not  awak 
ened  the  minds  nor  improved  the  manual  skill  of  the 
slave;  it  tends  to  a  nomadic  state  of  agriculture,  in 
which  the  lands  never  long  maintain  any  great  value. 
It  should  be  the  aim  of  the  planter,  while  he  makes 
what  annual  profit  he  can  from  his  land,  to  build  up 
a  valuable  estate,  which,  in  the  end,  from  its  con 
tinued  if  not  increased  productiveness,  will  be  not 
merely  a  more  valuable  bequest  to  children,  but  a 
permanent  property  in  the  community,  arid  a  perma 
nent  home  for  a  colony  of  slaves,  who,  upon  its  im 
proved  soil  and  with  its  accumulated  advantages, 
may  the  more  rapidly  and  certainly  make  advances 
in  civilization,  which  are  impossible  with  the  con 
tinual  movement  and  the  hard  labor  incident  to  an 
incessant  attack  upon  fresh  lands.  This  is  not  incon- 


12          "WHAT    THE    PLANTER    SHOULD    DO 

sistent  with  the  idea  that  diffusion  of  slaves  is  for 
their  advantage :  diffusion  is  a  benefit,  but  not  con 
stant  movement.  The  more  masters  the  better ;  but 
the  more  changes  the  worse.  The  exclusive  devotion 
to  special  staples  has  scarcely  one  compensating  ad 
vantage.  The  true  idea  of  a  plantation  is  an  indus 
trial  colony  under  one  head,  on  which  as  many 
branches  of  industry  are  concentrated  as  possible. 
It  should  be  self-supporting  as  far  as  practicable. 
The  present  interest  of  the  slaves  requires  this,  and 
the  ultimate  interest  of  the  master  demands  it  not 
less.  No  single  article  can  be  grown  by  a  whole 
district  with  such  advantage  as  to  purchase  all  others 
by  its  sale.  Where  land  can  find  consumers  close  at 
hand  for  all  its  products,  there  it  is  the  most  valuable. 
It  is  so  in  the  vicinity  of  every  large  city.  Land  pro 
duces  abundance  of  food  that  will  not  bear  transpor 
tation  ;  these,  its  heaviest  products,  afford  the  largest 
profit  to  the  farmer.  The  planter  has  this  advantage 
in  a  high  degree.  He  should  not  only  feed,  but  to  a 
great  extent  manufacture  the  clothing  of  his  people 
from  the  products  of  his  land.  This  implies  a  con 
siderable  reduction  in  the  crop  of  the  great  staples; 
but  not  by  any  means  a  reduction  in  the  amount 
received  for  them.  The  planters  have  committed 
the  mistake  of  constantly  overstocking  the  market. 
They  have  planted  cotton  on  the  best  terms  for 
Great  Britain,  by  keeping  such  a  stock  of  cotton  in 
her  markets  as  gave  the  purchaser  the  whole  power 
over  the  price. 

The  loss  to  American  slave  labor  which  this  false 
policy  has  produced  is  incredible.  It  is  probably  not 
less  than  from  one-third  to  one-half  the  annual  cost 


TO  INCREASE  THE  VALUE  OF  HIS  ESTATE.  13 

of  maintaining  each  slave ;  it  has  not  been  less  than 
from  ten  to  twenty  millions  yearly.  This  is  in  ad 
dition  to  a  heavy  loss  incurred  in  the  depreciation  of 
lands  by  this  wretched  system.  Under  a  proper 
course  of  cultivation,  by  rotation  and  home  manu 
facture  by  the  slaves,  plantations  would  increase 
rapidly  in  value ;  and  lands  cultivated  by  slaves 
would  be  worth  on  the  average  two  or  three  times 
what  they  can  be  sold  for  at  present.  This  system, 
too,  has  not  only  been  an  injury  to  the  master,  but 
an  immense  injustice  to  his  slaves,  by  retarding 
their  progress  and  their  ultimate  freedom  many  gene 
rations.  Great  Britain  has  made  paupers  of  her 
millions,  for  the  purpose  of  underselling  other  manu 
facturers  in  all  the  markets  of  the  world.  Our 
planters  have  encouraged  her  in  this  false  policy  by 
furnishing  cotton  at  her  own  price,  not  only  to  their 
own  pecuniary  disadvantage,  but  to  the  injury  of 
millions  of  their  people  thus  delayed  in  their  progress 
to  civilization  and  liberty.  I  use  these  terms  with 
out  hesitation,  because  I  have  not  the  least  doubt 
that  the  wiser  and  the  better  adjusted  the  industrial 
system  of  the  South,  the  more  rapidly  will  the 
Africans  be  prepared  for  freedom,  and  the  more  will 
ingly  will  their  masters  set  them  free.  In  a  well- 
arranged  system  of  slave  labor  they  would  improve 
so  rapidly,  pay  for  their  freedom  so  easily,  and  be 
come  fitted  to  enjoy  it  so  quickly,  that  emancipation 
would  come  as  fast,  if  not  faster,  than  the  wisest 
heads  could  prepare  for  it. 

Whatever  be  the  value  of  free  trade  as  a  theory 
or  department  of  political  economy,  I  could  never 
understand,  with  my  knowledge  of  the  subject,  how 


14          FREE    TRADE    AND    SLAVERY    ANTAGONISTIC. 

it  came  so  much  in  favor  with  Southern  politicians. 
I  can  understand  why  England  favors  it;  but  our 
planters,  it  seems  to  me,  ought  to  be  very  shy  of  it. 
There  is  in  my  view  but  one  sound  or  endurable 
defence  of  Slavery  —  that  it  is  for  the  good  of  the 
slave.  On  that  ground  only  can  Slavery  be  endured 
in  any  part  of  Christendom  for  the  time  to  come. 
Slavery  is  a  special  intervention  of  society  in  refer 
ence  to  a  particular  class  for  their  best  interests.  It 
takes  the  savage,  it  takes  his  labor,  his  personal 
liberty;  it  clothes  him,  feeds  him,  takes  care  of  his 
health ;  in  fact  it  descends  to  the  minutest  particu 
lars  in  the  direction  and  management  of  the  indi 
vidual  man.  This  is  a  wholesale  violation  of  the 
principle,  "  Laissez  faire,  laissez  passer  "  which  dictates 
that  in  what  concerns  labor  and  trade  and  personal 
dealing  men  are  the  best  judges  of  their  own  inte 
rests,  and  must  be  left  to  themselves.  There  are 
three  millions  in  this  country  to  whom  the  supposed 
benefits  of  free  trade  are  utterly  denied.  The  free- 
trade  men  of  Europe  are,  in  consistency  with  their 
theory,  strong  abolitionists.  When  the  commercial 
interests  of  England  arrived  at  that  state  in  which 
she  found  it  her  policy  to  become  the  apostle  and 
pretended  exemplar  of  free  trade,  she  at  once,  for  the 
sake  of  consistency,  washed  her  hands  of  Slavery. 
The  doctrine  of  the  theory  which  is  opposed  to  free 
trade  is,  that  in  all  circumstances,  and  every  where, 
the  interests  of  laborers,  individually  and  as  a  mass, 
should  be  specially  studied  and  specially  promoted. 
This  is  consistent  with  the  true  theory  of  Slavery. 
This  doctrine  finds  in  our  country  thrice  as  many 
poor  white  laborers  who  depend  upon  their  daily  toil 


FREE   TRADE   AND   THE   FACTORIES   OF   FRANCE.      15 

for  their  daily  bread,  and  it  holds  that  their  labor, 
being  all  that  they  have,  should  above  all  things  be 
the  subject  of  special  legislation  and  social  care. 
The  time  is  coming  when  the  holders  of  slaves  will 
find  the  logic  of  free  trade  wielded  against  them  with 
a  mighty  power,  which  will  derive  additional  force 
from  their  admissions.  I  am  familiar  enough  with 
the  free-trade  literature  of  England  and  the  conti 
nent  to  know  that  it  is  utterly  opposed  to  Slavery, 
and  in  fact,  if  the  premises  of  that  theory  be  ad 
mitted,  its  logic  must  soon  level  every  defence  of 
Slavery. 

It  has  always  struck  me  as  strange  that  the  South 
should  patronise  a  theory  which  would,  if  universally 
adopted,  destroy  the  growing  cotton  manufactories 
of  France,  of  Germany,  of  Belgium,  and  Russia,  as 
well  as  those  at  home,  and  thus  leave  the  whole  of 
the  cotton  to  find  its  market  in  England  at  the  prices 
dictated  there.  To  prefer  one  bidder  to  five  or  six 
for  such  a  commodity,  betrays  an  ignorance  of  com 
mercial  matters  of  which  only  an  agricultural  com 
munity  could  be  guilty.  If  the  whole  influence  and 
example  of  the  United  States  had  been  exerted  for 
the  diffusion  of  manufacturing  industry  throughout 
the  world,  there  would  now  be  half  a  dozen  effective 
bidders  among  the  nations  for  cotton.  Now,  England 
fixes  the  price ;  then,  the  planters  would  have  fixed 
their  own  rates. 

My  apprehension  that  the  free-trade  theory  is  not 
the  true  policy  of  the  South  is  as  strong  as  this :  I 
have  long  believed  that  one  of  the  most  serious  evils 
under  which  the  Southern  States  were  laboring  was 
free  trade  with  the  Northern  States.  This  is  indirectly 


16   SOUTHERN  COMMERCIAL  CONVENTIONS. 

admitted  by  Southern  politicians  and  men  of  busi< 
ness.  Witness  their  commercial  conventions,  the 
object  of  which  is  independence  of  the  Northern 
States  in  trade  and  industry.  These  conventions 
are  a  struggle  in  behalf  of  their  own  industry ;  they 
are  a  war  of  the  good  sense  and  necessities  of  the 
people  against  their  theory  of  free  trade.  It  is 
amusing  to  observe  the  workings  of  this  inconsistency, 
where  all  the  speeches  are  in  favor  of  free  trade, 
where  all  the  action  is  against  it.  These  Southern 
movements  spring  from  a  real  evil  —  free  trade  with 
the  North  —  and  demand  rightly  some  remedy  or 
alleviation.  A  complete  remedy  is  attainable  —  but 
might  involve  the  sacrifice  of  free-trade  theories,  to 
the  substantial  material  interests  of  the  people  of  the 
Southern  States.  In  my  view  of  Slavery,  that  which 
is  a  material  benefit  to  the  master  is  so  also  to  the 
slave.  Whatever  greatly  promotes  the  true  interests 
of  the  proprietors  of  land  and  slaves  enables  them 
to  improve  their  modes  of  cultivation,  to  introduce 
new  branches  of  industry  among  their  people,  to 
provide  better  for  their  comfort,  health,  and  proper 
education.  The  planter  who  is  barely  able  to  sustain 
himself  can  never  do  justice  to  his  people.  The 
friends  of  the  African  should  ever  be  ready  for  his 
sake  to  unite  in  promoting  the  true  industrial  inte 
rests  of  the  South.  It  is  really  far  less  difficult  now 
to  adjust  the  commercial  and  industrial  interests  of 
South  and  North  by  compromise  than  it  ever  was,  or 
is  now  to  adjust  their  political  interests.  It  can  only 
be  done,  however,  in  the  one  case  as  it  was  in  the 
other,  under  an  abiding  and  strong  feeling  of  the 
value  of  the  Union. 


THE   NORTH   AND   SOUTH   BOTH    SUFFER.      17 

That  this  free  trade  with  the  Southern  States  has 
been  of  immense  advantage  to  Northern  industry 
cannot  be  doubted.  It  has  gone  far  to  compensate 
the  injuries  it  has  suffered  in  the  trade  with  England. 
The  South  buys  from  the  North  to  the  full  amount 
of  its  whole  industry.  It  has  always  purchased  more 
than  its  crops  paid  for,  and  there  is  a  great  unpaid 
balance  due  from  Southern  merchants  to  Northern 
merchants.  The  country  which  buys  every  thing 
and  sells  one  or  two  commodities  must  always  suffer 
by  free  trade ;  it  pays  too  many  profits  and  too  much 
freight,  and  its  soil  is  but  half  employed.  Free-trade 
with  England  is  as  great  an  evil  for  the  South  as 
free  trade  with  the  North.  It  is  a  varied  industry 
which  the  South  wants.  It  cannot  be  had,  however, 
under  free  trade  with  England  any  more  than  under 
free  trade  with  the  North. 

The  approximations  already  made  to  free  trade  in 
the  United  States  have  probably  inflicted  on  the  in 
dustry  of  this  country  a  greater  destruction  of  capital 
than  would  compensate  the  South  five  times  over  for 
all  the  depreciation  of  her  lands.  The  South  has 
at  times  imagined  that  what  was  an  injury  to  the 
North  must  be  their  benefit.  It  is  not  so.  The 
industrial  power  of  the  country  may  be  so  combined 
as  to  produce  combined  advantage;  and  no  great 
interest  can  suffer  without  its  being  reflected  and 
visited  upon  others.  The  North  has  had  great  benefit 
from  free  trade  with  the  South,  but  the  North  has 
suffered  not  a  little  from  the  evils  inflicted  on  the 
South  by  free  trade,  and  that  unpaid  debt  is  a  part 
of  the  suffering.  So  England  pursues  her  foreign 
trade  with  a  terrible  infatuation;  forcing  her  goods 
2 


18  UNWISE    POLICY    OF    ENGLAND. 

into  all  corners  of  the  earth,  and  every  few  years 
sustaining  immense  losses  by  those  who  cannot  or 
will  not  pay.  England's  true  policy  is  to  increase 
her  market  at  home.  If  she  would  add  but  §20  per 
head  to  the  consumption  of  fifteen  millions  of  her 
people,  which  they  need  to  make  them  as  comfortable 
as  our  slaves,  she  would  have  an  additional  market 
of  $300,000.000,  a  sum  equal  to  two-thirds  of  her 
whole  foreign  trade.  At  least  one-fourth  of  the  sum 
would  be  for  cotton  for  her  own  people,  who  need  it. 
When  England  ceases  to  manufacture  for  the  world 
at  the  lowest  prices,  she  can  inaugurate  the  policy  of 
adequately  supplying  her  own  people.  The  increased 
prices  of  her  exports  will  enable  her  to  purchase  all 
her  raw  materials.  England  has  certainly  lost  by 
her  policy  of  manufacturing  cheap  goods  and  sending 
them  over  the  world  for  sale  upon  long  credit,  more, 
far  more,  than  would  now  discharge  her  national 
debt.  She  has  lost  on  the  price,  and  she  has  lost  on 
her  credits ;  her  people  have  suffered  for  want  of  that 
which  was  carried  away  and  lost  abroad;  and  this 
policy  has  been  pursued  for  centuries.  Yet  merchant 
princes  have  flourished,  and  so  have  princely  manu 
facturers.  The  whole  loss  has  fallen  upon  the  English 
masses.  The  laborers  are  slaves  to  this  system, 
which  has  begotten  an  aristocracy  of  masters,  who 
are  not  responsible  for  the  health,  food,  clothing,  or 
moral  training  of  the  slaves  upon  whose  labors  they 


grow  rich. 


I  desire  to  see  our  African  slaves  trained  to  civili 
zation  and  comfort  under  a  better  system  —  a  system 
which  regards  not  trade  merely,  but  industry;  and 
not  production  merely,  but  the  laborer;  a  system 


THE     CRT    OF    DISUNION.  19 

which  will  bring  back  to  the  producers,  their  masters 
or  employers,  a  full  and  fair  return  for  all  their 
labor.  The  labor  of  the  man,  whether  slave  or  free, 
should  be  rated  at  what  will  sustain  him  comfortably 
with  his  family  and  educate  his  children.  The  free 
man's  wages  would  be  applied  by  himself;  the  slave's 
by  his  master,  under  all  the  responsibilities  which 
bear  upon  the  relation.  And  that  national  policy 
should  be  pursued  which  would  tend  to  bring  in 
dustry  to  this  wholesome  condition.  Let  the  South, 
then,  take  care  of  Southern  industry  and  make  it 
effective  by  making  it  varied;  let  the  policy  of  living 
upon  one  staple  be  abandoned,  and  let  every  planta 
tion  become  in  time  an  independent  colony  of  intel 
ligent  laborers.  As  the  Southern  States  cannot 
achieve  their  industrial  independence  by  restrictive 
commercial  regulations,  their  own  Legislatures  must 
find  other  legal  modes  of  attaining  the  end ;  and  in 
that  object,  properly  pursued,  they  should  be  aided, 
not  thwarted.  They  may  confer  important  favors 
on  the  Northern  States  and  secure  adequate  compen 
sation  in  return. 

If  the  men  of  the  South,  in  their  Legislatures  and 
out  of  them,  had  expended  but  half  the  mind,  half 
the  labor,  and  half  the  money  they  have  expended 
on  their  theory  of  free  trade,  in  widening  the  basis 
of  their  industry,  varying  its  branches,  and  in  pro 
tecting  it  from  Northern  and  foreign  invasion,  the 
South  would  this  day  be  five  times  richer  than  it  is, 
and  ten  times  more  contented. 

In  the  face  of  such  considerations  as  these,  how 
ever,  a  cry  for  the  separation  of  the  States  is  now 
coming  up  from  various  parts  of  the  South.  It  has 


20  THE    ADVOCATES    OF    DISUNION. 

been  so  before,  but  it  strikes  me  as  rather  more  por 
tentous  than  in  times  past.  It  is  a  striking  fact  that 
the  only  two  classes  in  the  United  States  who  are  in 
favor  of  disunion  are  the  fanatical  abolitionists  of 
the  North,  and  the  fanatical  anti-abolitionists  in  the 
South.  The  numbers  North  or  South  actually  in 
favor  of  disunion  are  really  insignificant.  The  fana 
tical  abolitionist  hates  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  because  it  recognises  slavery,  and  is  its  pro 
tector;  he  hates  the  Bible  for  the  same  reason.  For 
him  there  is  no  enormity  under  the  sun  like  slavery, 
and  there  is  no  price  he  would  not  pay  for  its  aboli 
tion,  even  to  the  lives  and  peace  and  happiness  of 
both  masters  and  slaves.  But  the  cry  from  the 
South,  from  what  motive  does  it  come?  It  has  come 
in  past  times  and  still  comes  in  a  large  degree  from 
those  who  only  use  it  for  political  ends  and  to  gain 
concessions  from  the  North  to  those  who  profess  to 
be  suffering  so  immensely  from  the  disadvantages  of 
the  Union.  Of  course  this  kind  of  talk  must  be  very 
loud  and  apparently  very  earnest  to  attain  its  object. 
It  must  be  supported  by  some  show  of  reason  and 
logic.  This  game  has  been  played  long  and  often 
with  success.  It  has  had  the  effect,  however,  of  cre 
ating  a  spirit  of  dissatisfaction,  and  of  persuading 
many  of  the  less  intelligent  that  the  injuries  inflicted 
upon  the  South  by  the  Union  are  much  greater  than 
they  are,  and  to  make  some  of  them  actual  advocates 
of  disunion.  It  is  probable  that  this  has  taken  place 
to  some  extent,  but  clearly  not  to  the  extent  sup 
posed  by  those  who  are  so  loud  in  their  cry  of 
disunion.  The  majority  of  the  Southern  people  are 
willing  that  this  cry  may  be  used  for  political  effect, 


FANATICS    NORTH    AND    SOUTH.  21 

though    at    heart    as    sound  patriots  as  any  in  the 
nation. 

There  are  doubtless  some  in  the  South  who  cor 
respond  in  their  fanaticism  to  the  extreme  aboli 
tionists  of  the  North,  and  who,  viewing  slavery, 
unending  slavery,  as  the  true  and  proper  appendage 
of  every  social  system,  regard  the  Constitution  with 
dislike  because  it  forms  a  union  with  people  who  do 
not  hold  slaves  and  who  do  not  appreciate  the  advan 
tages  of  the  system.  The  wisdom  of  these  men  is 
precisely  of  the  same  stamp  as  that  of  the  fanatical 
abolitionists.  Their  minds  are  of  the  same  order,  and 
if  their  places  were  changed  their  doctrines  would 
be  changed.  However  great  the  noise  they  make — 
for  that  is  one  of  their  joint  characteristics  —  their 
number  is  not  only  small,  but,  what  is  more  im 
portant,  their  influence  not  great.  They  are  known 
to  be  men  of  more  imagination  than  judgment;  if 
they  are  sometimes  eloquent,  they  are  never  com 
petent  advisers  and  safe  guides. 

But,  however  powerless  to  effect  a  disruption  of 
the  Union  these  fanatical  parties  may  be,  there  is 
danger  in  the  cry.  It  corrupts  the  minds  of  the 
young,  and  tends  to  extinguish  patriotism  and  the 
sentiment  of  nationality  in  the  heart  of  the  youth 
of  the  country.  It  is  moral  treason  ;  it  is  resistance 
to  the  implied  oath  of  allegiance.  No  truly  sound 
and  thoughtful  man  can  be  guilty  of  it.  But  this 
project  of  disunion  deserves  more  full  consideration 
coming  from  the  South. 

To  me  no  folly  —  nay,  let  me  say  no  stupidity  — 
ever  appeared  so  great  as  this  cry  of  disunion  in  the 
South,  and  especially  when  slavery  is  made  the  occa- 


22        CHRISTENDOM    OPPOSED    TO     SLAVERY. 

sion.  In  my  view,  and  not  in  mine  alone,  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  at  this  moment 
the  mightiest  bulwark  of  slavery  now  existing  in  the 
world.  The  institution  has  been  crumbling  to  atoms 
throughout  all  Christendom  for  the  last  half  century. 
Under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  alone 
does  it  flourish  beyond  the  reach  of  harm.  It  is 
woven  into  our  political  institutions,  and  cannot  be 
separated  from  them  without  breaking  up  the  Union. 
The  North,  under  our  present  Constitution,  is  bound 
to  accept  slavery  as  it  is,  and  to  protect  it.  The 
North  cannot  escape  this  obligation,  and,  let  me  say, 
does  not  desire  to  escape  it,  at  the  expense  of  the 
Union  arid  all  the  evils  to  bond  and  free,  North  and 
South,  which  must  follow  the  disruption.  The  mass 
of  the  people  North  are  and  will  be  faithful  to  their 
country  as  it  is,  with  all  its  past  compromises  and  in 
all  its  present  trials.  So  I  trust,  also,  is  the  mass 
of  the  people  in  the  South.  My  object  is  to  warn 
the  latter  that  the  subject  is  the  last  one  that  should 
be  lightly  handled  by  holders  of  slaves. 

The  people  of  Christendom  out  of  the  United 
States  are,  almost  without  exception,  opposed  to 
slavery:  the  whole  literature  of  books  and  journals, 
civil  and  religious,  is  unanimous  against  slavery  as 
it  exists  in  the  United  States.  The  sentiment  of 
modern  civilization  is  against  it.  It  is  regarded  with 
special  abhorrence  in  Great  Britain — we  do  not  say 
with  how  much  consistency,  in  view  of  a  population 
of  many  millions  ground  down  by  the  mercantile 
system  of  that  country  below  the  condition  of  slavery 
-but  with  an  abhorrence  virulent  in  proportion  to 
their  own  sins  against  humanity.  This  abhorrence 


FOLLY    OF    EXPECTING    EUROPEAN    AID.     23 

of  American  slavery  pervades  the  whole  governing 
population  of  Great  Britain.     The  truth  of  this  asser 
tion  is  familiar  to  all  who  have  travelled  in  Great 
Britain  and   all  who  are  familiar  with  her  modern 
literature.       Yet   to    this    land  —  where    enmity    to 
American  slavery  is  so  prevalent  —  where  it  is  diffi 
cult  for  an  American  who  never  owned  a  slave  and 
never  was  in  a  slave  State,  to  travel  without  being 
insulted    on    the    subject    of    slavery,    and    without 
hearing  our  Northern  States  denounced  as  abettors 
of  slavery  —  do  some  of  the   Southern   orators   and 
writers  who  favor  disunion  look  for  countenance  and 
aid  when  the  day  of  separation  comes  and  civil  war 
begins.     The  folly  involved  in  this  idea  is  quite  con 
sistent  with   that  of  dissolving   the    Union  for  the 
benefit  of  slavery.     It  is  not  at  all  improbable  that 
men  in  high  official  position,  both  in  England  and 
on  the  continent,  have  been  sounded  upon  this  sub 
ject  by  some  of  the  zealots  of  disunion.     An  intima 
tion  from  a  friend  recently  in  Europe  makes  it  indeed 
more  than  probable ;  one  of  the  crowned  heads  of 
the   continent    having  recently  said,  as  if  speaking 
from  special  knowledge,  that  our  Union  would  not 
last  beyond  six  years  more.     This  information  was 
doubtless   derived  from  one  of  those  busy  pests  of 
society  found  in  every  country,  who  are  traitors  in 
heart    to    all    its    best    interests.     If  any    Southern 
fanatic  has  been  officious  enough  or  fool  enough  to 
sound  the  Courts  of  Europe  with  a  view  to  ascertain 
their  views  upon  the  subject  of  disunion  and  to  pro 
pitiate  them  upon  that  scheme,  he  has  no  doubt  been 
preciously  duped.    They  would  encourage  the  treason 
no  doubt,  while  they  contemned  the  traitor.     It  is  un- 


24         FEELING    OF    EUROPEAN     POWERS. 

happily  too  true  that  our  great  Republic  is  unpopular 
in  Europe.  Our  advance  in  population,  power,  and 
wealth,  as  well  as  in  naval  and  military  prowess, 
would,  without  any  abuse  of  these  advantages,  have 
been  sufficient  to  arouse  the  jealousy  of  monarchical 
Governments;  but  our  recent  absorption  of  Texas, 
our  attack  on  Mexico,  our  demonstrations,  piratical 
and  diplomatic,  upon  Cuba,  our  inordinate  appetite 
for  annexation,  have  caused  our  country  recently  to 
be  regarded  with  a  strong  dislike,  not  unmingled  with 
alarm. 

The  powers  of  Europe  look  upon   us  as  a  great 
fighting    bully,    boasting    of    wealth    and    strength 
in    everybody's    face,    and    laying   his    club    lustily 
around  him  without  discretion  or  much  care   who 
suffers.      They  look  upon  such  a  character  as  one 
who  deserves  to  be  humbled  and  punished.     They 
are  all  in  favor  of  dismembering  him.     If  the  country 
shall  be  willing  to  dismember  itself,  and  thus  remove 
one  of  the  foes  they  most  fear,  great  will  be  their 
self-gratulation.      They  would   gladly  be  saved  the 
task  of  humbling  the  haughty  Republicans  —  a  task 
which  might  involve  their  suffering  some  portion  of 
the  humiliation  they  designed  for  us.     No  prospect 
could  be  more  pleasing  to  the  potentates  of  Europe 
than  the  disunion  of  this  country.     There  can  be  no 
reasonable    doubt    of  that.      Would   they,    in    that 
event,  be  any  more  our  friends  than  they  are  now  ? 
Would  the  people  of  Great  Britain,  or  those  of  the 
continent,  be  any  more  the  friends  of  slavery  than 
now  ?     No  :  they  would  exult  and  say,  Slavery  is 
now  doomed;  it  has  lost  its  great  shield  —  the  Con 
stitution    of  the  United    States.     If  disunion    were 
followed  by  civil  war,  as  would   be  inevitable,  the 


THE    COTTON    INFLUENCE.  25 

Governments  of  Europe  would  gladly  see  us  wasting 
that  strength  on  each  other  which  they  feared  might 
be  some  day  exerted  against  them  or  their  projects. 
They  would  take  no  part  in  a  contest  in  which  they 
could  not  reasonably  expect  to  reap  any  solid  advan 
tage.  They  would  allow  us  to  fight  it  out,  because 
we  should  be  doing  their  work  without  any  cost  of 
blood  or  treasure  to  them. 

•'But  the  cotton  !  the  cotton  !  You  do  not  take  into 
the  account  that  Great  Britain  must  have  our  cotton.' 
It  is  very  true  that  one  of  the  elements  of  diplomacy 
and  battle  in  that  struggle  would  be  cotton  ;  but  its 
importance  is  over-estimated  by  the  South,  if  it  sup 
poses  that  it  could  dictate  terms  of  peace  or  secure 
any  desired  advantage  upon  the  strength  of  its  cotton 
bales.  Great  Britain  sacrificed  more  than  the  full 
value  of  all  her  cotton  factories  in  her  wars  with 
France  and  Napoleon,  and  she  is  now  engaged  in  a 
contest  which  may  cost  as  much,  to  preserve  the 
balance  of  power  in  Europe.  She  might  estimate 
the  advantage  to  her  own  cotton-growing  dominions 
as  more  than  equal  to  the  disadvantage  she  would 
suffer  by  being,  for  a  time,  deprived  of  any  supply 
of  cotton  from  our  Southern  States.  She  might  say  : 
"  This  privation,  and  the  high  price  of  cotton,  will 
stimulate  its  culture  in  every  climate  and  soil  suit 
able  for  it.  Instead  of  relying,  as  heretofore,  mainly 
on  one  country  and  slave  labor  for  cotton,  we  may 
look  for  it  hereafter  to  a  score  of  countries.  Our 
linen  manufacture  will,  in  the  mean  time,  flourish  as 
it  deserves  to  do,  and  when  the  struggle  is  over  we 
shall  be  more  the  masters  of  the  commercial  and 
manufacturing  world  than  ever."  France  must  soon 


26        BRITISH    HOSTILITY    TO    SLAVERY. 

receive  her  supplies  from  Algiers.  No  country  would 
have  any  advantage  over  another  in  regard  to  the 
short  supply  of  cotton. 

But  even  if  the  English  Government  were  disposed 
to  protect  the  Southern  States  and  their  slaves  for 
the  sake  of  their  supply  of  cotton,  it  would  rouse  by 
such  an  attempt  all  the  strength  and  fury  of  British 
abolitionism  —  a  power  potent  enough  to  hurl  from 
its  place  any  Ministry  which  should  become  the 
avowed  patron  and  protector  of  slavery.  It  is  well 
known  that  abolitionism  in  this  country  has  derived 
much  of  its  boldness,  venom,  and  money  too,  from 
the  busy  and  untiring  zeal  of  the  abolitionists  of 
Great  Britain ;  and  it  may  be  well  to  recollect  that 
a  party  which  was  powerful  enough  to  wrest  from 
the  Government  twenty-five  years  ago  a  hundred 
millions  of  dollars  to  purchase  the  freedom  of  the 
slaves  in  the  West  Indies  would  not  now  permit  that 
Government  to  become  the  protector  of  slavery  in 
the  Southern  States.  No !  Cotton  is  no  foundation 
on  which  to  erect  any  hope  or  help  from  Great 
Britain,  or  any  fortress  of  civil  war  at  home,  when 
slavery  engages  in  a  struggle  for  its  existence.  How 
unwise  then  to  trust — nay,  risk — the  happiness  and 
welfare  of  the  whole  people  of  the  South  so  entirely 
upon  the  success  of  cotton  culture  and  the  future 
demand  for  it!  Those  who  thus  risk  their  all  upon 
one  rope  must  expect  to  be  wrecked  by  unfavorable 
blasts  of  fortune.  Cotton  may  be  grown  elsewhere  ; 
cotton  may  be  superseded ;  a  popular  revolution  and 
civil  war  in  England  may  ruin  the  market.  No  State 
in  the  South  should  be  dependent  on  cotton  alone 
for  the  necessaries  of  life ;  not  even  for  its  luxuries. 


CONSEQUENCES    OF    DISUNION.  27 

If  foreign  influences,  then,  be  regarded  as  out  of 
the  way,  and  the  treason  of  disunion  be  considered 
as  standing  alone  and  trusting  in  its  own  strength, 
the  first  consideration  will  be,  where  is  to  be  the  line 
of  separation  —  the  boundary  between  North  and 
South?  It  strikes  me  such  a  national  boundary  as 
that  between  the  States  with  slavery  and  those  with 
out  is  an  impossibility.  Its  vast  length  would  render 
it  indefensible ;  its  peculiar  course  and  the  navigable 
rivers  it  involves  would  give  occasion  to  ceaseless 
causes  of  irritation  and  unending  war.  There  could 
be  no  peace  with  such  a  boundary,  with  slaves  on 
one  side  and  abolitionists  on  the  other,  and  nothing 
but  war  could  change  it ;  nothing  but  sheer  force 
could  establish  and  maintain  another  boundary.  It 
is  well  known  that  a  vast  majority  of  the  Southern 
people  are  against  disunion  for  any  cause  or  under 
any  circumstances,  believing  that  they  can  maintain 
themselves,  their  interests,  and  institutions  more 
successfully  in  the  Union  than  out  of  it,  and  that 
they  are  quite  as  able  to  defend  themselves  where 
they  are  as  others  are  to  attack  them.  Supposing, 
however,  for  a  moment,  that  this  majority  is  for  a 
time  overcome,  that  disunion  is  accomplished,  and 
that  a  popular  Government  is  established,  then  will 
arise  more  reasons  for  disunion  than  before;  for  the 
questions  to  be  settled  and  the  work  to  be  done  will 
involve  more  serious  difficulties  than  any  legislators 
in  this  country  have  yet  encountered.  If  majorities 
against  the  de  facto  Government  do  not  speedily 
appear,  if  discord  and  dissatisfaction  and  resistance 
do  not  rapidly  paralyze  the  arm  of  the  new  Govern 
ment,  it  will  be  strange  indeed.  The  South  will 


28  HORRORS    OF     A    CIVIL    WAR. 

then  find  on  the  one  hand  abundance  of  the  same 
sort  of  stuff  in  Southern  Congress  as  that  which 
has  figured  in  the  revolutions  of  Mexico  and  South 
America,  and  on  the  other  very  many  true  friends 
of  the  old  state  of  things.  With  such  a  boundary 
to  watch  and  defend  and  such  discordant  elements  in 
its  social  system,  the  South  would  be  in  no  favorable 
condition  to  protect  its  peculiar  institution  from  the 
incessant  attacks  which  would  be  directed  against  it, 
and  through  it  against  the  whole  country.  The  wise 
and  the  good  would  then  be  roused  against  the 
unwise,  hot-headed  men  who  had  brought  such  diffi 
culties  upon  them.  It  would  soon  be  found  that  the 
fanatical  disunionists  who  had  caused  the  calamity 
were  not  the  men  to  be  trusted  in  times  when  sound 
judgment  and  firm  courage  were  indispensable.  If 
that  day  ever  comes,  the  present  race  of  politicians 
and  political  economists  in  the  South  will  be  thrust 
aside  with  equal  contempt  for  their  history  and  their 
theories. 

War  between  the  North  and  South  !  This  world 
has  never  witnessed  a  greater  calamity  to  human 
welfare.  There  is  no  true  patriot,  no  friend  of 
humanity,  but  must  shudder  at  the  idea.  It  is,  how 
ever,  evidently  within  the  contemplation  of  some  of 
those  fanatics  who  are  now  fanning  the  flames  of 
discord.  This  extremity  of  war  belongs  rather  to 
the  fanatics  of  the  South  than  those  of  the  North. 
They  inflate  themselves  with  the  idea  that  Southern 
chivalry  could  readily  overcome  the  manufacturers, 
mechanics,  and  farmers  of  the  North.  They  sup 
pose  that  offices  and  glory  would  be  plenty,  and  that 
there  would  be  many  opportunities  for  immensely 


ITS    EFFECT    UPON    THE    SLAVES.  29 

distinguishing  themselves.  They  do  not  realize  that 
if  a  separation  had  taken  place  the  real  men  of  the 
South,  the  men  who  have  not  been  seen  in  the  mire 
of  politics,  would  soon  take  the  reins  out  of  such 
unworthy  and  incapable  hands.  The  South,  like 
the  North,  having  been  long  misrepresented,  would 
be  roused  by  the  emergency ;  her  ablest  and  best 
men  would  again  take  the  lead.  It  is  but  too  true 
that  separation  would  be  followed  by  war.  It  could 
not  take  place  but  under  very  great  irritation  on  both 
sides.  With  hot  blood  to  begin  with  and  the  flight 
of  slaves  to  keep  it  up,  a  border  warfare  of  the  most 
bitter  kind  would  immediately  ensue.  It  costs  more 
now  to  pursue  a  slave  than  he  is  worth;  but  in  the 
case  of  war  on  the  borders,  it  would  cost  more  to  keep 
slaves  within  a  hundred  miles  of  the  boundary  than 
they  would  be  worth.  They  would  soon  become 
excited,  dangerous  enemies  to  the  households  of  their 
masters,  and  almost  impossible  to  retain  in  service. 
Now,  when  they  fly,  they  must  run  hundreds  of 
miles  after  they  cross  the  slave  boundary,  and  are  still 
in  danger  of  being  arrested  and  returned :  then  once 
across  the  line  they  would  be  safe.  No  slaves  would 
remain  near  the  long  boundary;  those  who  did  not 
make  their  escape  would  be  sent  far  into  the  interior. 
The  seat  of  this  fratricidal  war,  originating  in 
slavery,  would  soon  be  along  a  boundary  where  there 
were  no  slaves.  Its  heaviest  calamities,  its  worst 
devastations  on  the  Southern  side  would  fall  upon 
those  who  were  and  could  be  no  longer  slaveholders. 
I  say  nothing  of  the  courage,  endurance,  or  military 
skill  of  the  respective  parties.  There  is  not  a  doubt 
they  could  do  each  other  incalculable  injury,  and 


30  DEPRECIATION  OF  SLAVE  PROPERTY. 

that  in  a  few  years  the  actual  cost  of  the  war,  its 
ravages,  its  interruption  of  industry,  would  he  equal 
in  value  to  the  whole  of  the  able-bodied  slaves.  The 
free  States  have  double  the  population  along  the 
boundary  that  the  States  of  the  South  have,  and  are 
therefore  doubly  as  strong,  without  taking  into 
account  the  paralyzing  effect  of  the  slave  population, 
which  would  have  to  be  watched  in  the  rear,  with  a 
powerful  enemy  in  front.  I  am  willing  to  admit  the 
South  could  never  be  conquered ;  such  an  effort 
would  not  probably  be  made,  and  could  not  be  suc 
cessful  ;  but  the  South  could  and  would  be  ruined. 
Any  cool  and  reflecting  mind  can  anticipate  some  of 
the  principal  results:  1.  The  value  of  slaves  would 
sink  rapidly  to  one-half,  one-third,  or  a  fourth  of  their 
present  rate,  according  to  their  localities.  On  the 
line  of  the  boundary  they  would  be  worth  nothing 
except  for  sale  in  the  interior ;  great  numbers  would 
be  sent  back  for  sale.  But  the  value  for  hundreds 
of  miles  in  the  interior  would  be  affected  by  uneasi 
ness  of  the  masters  and  increased  restlessness  among 
slaves.  There  would  be  no  demand  for  slaves  where 
this  uneasiness  extended.  Slaves  now  quiet  and 
peaceful,  would  soon  become  agitated  by  rumors  of 
war  and  the  movement  of  armies ;  a  war  they  would 
soon  learn  of  which  they  were  the  cause;  a  war 
they  would  soon  learn  involving  their  freedom  or 
perpetual  bondage ;  roused  by  the  excitement  of  such 
a  war,  they  could  no  longer  be  trusted  with  the  lives 
and  property  of  the  masters.  Thus  roused,  and 
roused  they  would  be,  murder  and  conflagration 
would  rage  far  and  wide.  The  slaves  could  burn  up 
all  the  dwellings,  and  all  the  buildings  in  the  South- 


EFFECTS    ON     THE     SOUTHERN    PORTS.     31 

ern  country  places  in  one  night.  The  Southern 
social  system  reposes  upon  magazines  of  powder, 
peacefully  and  safely  it  is  true,  and  with  power  and 
facilities  to  increase  this  security.  Will  the  South 
deliberately  kindle  a  fire  over  these  mines,  and  incur 
the  hazard  of  inevitable  explosion  ?  After  three  years 
of  war  with  the  North,  neither  woman  nor  child 
would  sleep  in  safety  in  all  the  South.  That  Slavery 
which  some  now  defend  and  would  extend  as  a  bless 
ing,  would  then  be  felt  as  the  direct  curse  of  human 
ity.  It  can  only  under  any  circumstances  be  a  bless 
ing,  when  it  is  a  blessing  to  the  slave  as  well  as  the 
master,  and  it  can  never  be  a  blessing  to  either,  but 
under  the  reign  of  peace  and  a  varied  industry. 

2.  The  whole  of  the  Southern  ports  would  be 
placed  under  blockade.  Not  a  bale  of  cotton,  not  a 
cask  of  rice,  nor  a  hogshead  of  tobacco  could  be  ex 
ported.  I  am  supposing  there  would  be  no  help  from 
England,  and  there  is  no  probability  that  there  would 
be  any.  The  South  might  purchase  ships,  but  the 
South  has  no  sailors  and  can  have  none :  and  even 
steamers  require  sailors.  Charleston,  Savannah, 
Mobile  and  New  Orleans,  would  be  completely  shut 
out  from  the  foreign  market.  The  main  industry  of 
the  South  would  be  ruined.  What  then  would  be 
the  value  of  slaves?  Maryland  would  become  the 
seat  of  war ;  slaves  could  not  be  retained  in  any  part 
of  that  State.  Baltimore  would  be  a  besieged  city, 
and  the  Chesapeake  would  be  no  longer  a  channel 
of  commerce,  let  who  might  hold  its  strong  places. 
Baltimore  would  be  utterly  prostrated  for  the  time, 
by  a  war  between  North  and  South.  The  whole 
Southern  coast  would  be  visited  by  clouds  of  North- 


32    FALL  IN  THE  VALUE  OF  LANDS. 

ern  coasters  and  small  steamers  carrying  off  slaves 
by  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands.  It  would  be 
impossible  to  prevent  this  from  the  land  side.  Nearly 
the  whole  Southern  coast  would  be  open  to  hostile 
incursion.  The  result  would  be  to  excite  and  un 
settle  the  slaves,  with  the  results  of  fire  and  outrage. 
Can  they  be  sensible  men  who  shut  their  eyes  to  such 
hazards  ?  Can  they  be  prudent  men  who  are  driven 
by  the  mere  excitement  of  party  politics,  or  by  petty 
contests  about  a  few  dozen  fugitive  slaves,  to  mea 
sures  which  might  have  such  dire  results? 

3.  With  the  value  of  slaves  and  the  general  dis 
turbance  of  agricultural  industry  in  the  South,  lands 
would  fall  in  value  from  twenty  to  fifty  per  cent,  and 
become  in  fact  wholly  unsaleable.  Property  in  slaves 
becoming  unsafe,  undesirable  and  unprofitable,  yield 
ing  no  income,  and  there  being  in  the  South  no 
field  for  the  industry  or  enterprise  of  the  white  popu 
lation,  (and  in  time  of  war  there  could  be  no  general 
cure  for  that  evil,)  there  would  be  a  large  emigration 
to  the  North.  This  would  occur  not  only  from  the 
cause  just  mentioned,  but  from  the  ties  of  kindred 
and  a  multitude  of  others,  not  the  least  of  which 
would  be  the  fear  of  the  slaves.  This  emigration 
would  throw  vast  quantities  of  land  on  the  market, 
and  completely  destroy  any  selling  value  lands  might 
have.  I  might  proceed  with  this  enumeration  of 
calamities  which  disunion  and  war  would  inflict  on 
the  South;  but  surely  ruined  cities,  the  loss  of  all 
foreign  commerce,  the  destruction  of  home  industry, 
the  loss  of  slaves  by  thousands  upon  thousands, 
perhaps  hundreds  of  thousands,  the  demoralization 
of  the  remainder,  the  horrors  of  servile  being  added 


WAR  CALAMITOUS  TO  THE  SOUTH.   33 

to  the  devastation  of  civil  war,  the  fall  in  the  value 
of  lands,  in  addition  to  that  in  the  value  of  slaves, 
and  the  consequent  general  ruin  of  private  fortunes, 
surely  these  are  enough  in  contemplation  to  bring- 
any  but  madmen  to  their  senses.  Men  who,  for  the 
causes  of  which  the  South  now  complain,  can,  through 
want  of  firmness,  or  good  sense,  or  patience,  drag  a 
whole  population  into  misfortunes  such  as  these, 
deserve  neither  wives,  nor  children,  nor  home,  nor 
country,  nor  friends,  nor  estate. 

Looking  upon  Slavery,  as  I  do,  as  an  efficient 
means  of  civilizing  the  African,  and  believing  that, 
however  short  the  masters  in  the  United  States  have 
come  of  their  duty  in  this  respect,  they  have  done 
better  than  others,  and  greatly  advanced  their  slaves 
in  civilization  and  industry,  I  should  deplore  the  con 
sequences  of  such  a  war  in  its  results  upon  the  slave, 
as  well  as  upon  the  master.  The  almost  certain 
result  of  this  contest  would  be  the  entire  extinction  of 
Slavery,  whereby  millions  of  semi-civilized  men  would 
be  turned  loose,  to  the  utter  ruin  of  the  white 
population,  though  unfit  themselves  to  form  a  civi 
lized  community.  The  condition  of  this  great  mass 
of  humanity  would  speedily  fall  below  its  present 
standard,  and  their  progress  in  civilization  would  be 
indefinitely  retarded.  Thus  war  with  the  North 
would  be  equally  ruinous  to  the  white  and  colored 
population.  The  end  would  be  the  re-colonization 
of  the  Southern  territory  by  white  labor,  and  its  re 
union  with  the  North. 

If,  contrary  to  the  opinion  above  suggested,  England 
should  interfere  by  her  navy  to  break  up  the  South 
ern  blockade,  the  almost  certain  result  would  be  the 
3 


34    ELEMENTS    OF    DISCORD    IN    THE    SOUTH. 

loss  of  her  provinces  north  of  the  United  States  and 
their  becoming  Northern  States,  thus  making  a  na 
tion  in  the  North  of  overpowering  magnitude  and 
strength,  able  at  all  times  to  make  head  against  any 
European  alliance.  If  no  war  should  follow  dis 
union.,  there  are  elements  of  discord  in  the  Southern 
States  and  population  which  would  soon  make  it  an 
unhappy  and  undesirable  residence.  There  would  be 
a  wide  territory  and  no  middle  class.  An  aristocracy 
can  never  prosper  in  such  circumstances.  The  leaders 
in  the  South  appear  now  to  agree  and  stand  firmly 
together;  but  this  union  is  solely  in  defence  of  Slavery, 
supposed  to  be  threatened  by  the  North.  If  this 
repressive  influence  were  removed,  there  would  be 
no  longer  two  or  three,  but  the  parties  in  the  South 
would  be  as  many  as  the  chieftains.  The  Southern 
people  may  respect  law  and  venerate  constitutions, 
but  they  are  guided  by  their  passions;  they  lack 
patience  and  calmness,  and  fail  in  the  exercise  of 
their  common  sense.  They  would  be  a  prey  to  feuds 
and  divisions.  An  aristocracy  could  govern  Venice, 
a  city,  but  not  Poland,  a  country.  Kussia  would 
now  be  a  scene  of  internal  strife  but  for  the  power 
of  the  Czar.  Mexico  has  many  enlightened,  well- 
educated,  intelligent  men,  but  no  educated,  intelligent 
middle  class.  Mexico  is  a  prey  to  chieftainship,  and 
so  would  be  our  Southern  States.  So  it  was  when  the 
feudal  system  prevailed  throughout  Europe,  and  so 
it  must  ever  be  where  men  have  a  taste  for  power 
and  leisure  to  seek  for  it,  and  where  no  other  great 
interests  or  pursuits  interfere.  It  is  not  so  now  in 
the  Southern  States,  because  for  the  reason  already 
given,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 


THE     CONSTITUTION    AND     THE     SOUTH.    35 

the  power  which  upholds  it  represses  the  freaks  of 
ambition  and  the  quarrels  of  the  ambitious. 

The  true  policy  of  the  South  is  plain  to  unclouded 
eyes.'     The  Southern  people  have  a  great  advantage 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  United   States;  such  an 
advantage  as  a  representation  for  three-fifths  of  the 
colored  people   could   not  now  be  obtained  on  any 
terms.     That  is  a  mighty  power  placed  in  the  hands 
of  the  white  population  of  the  South  over  the  whole 
policy  of  this  immense  country.     This  vast  nation 
is  bound  by  it  to  the  defence  of  Slavery  against  all 
the  world.     Slavery  by  itself  is  detested  now  through 
out  Christendom;  but  Slavery  here  is  a  part  of  the 
institutions  of  the  freest  and  most  powerful  country 
in  the  world.     Slavery  commands  respect  here,  and 
no  where  else.     The  South  should  stand  by  the  Con 
stitution  while  a  shred  of  it  is  left.     It  should  main 
tain  the  Union  with  all  its  power,  and  in  the  Union 
it  has  great  power.     All  its  battles  should  be  fought 
in  the  Union,  for  there  is  its  strength;  out  of  the 
Union  Samson  is  shorn  of  his  locks.     It  is  true  the 
wisdom  and  good  sense  of  the  South  in  the  Union 
has  been  far  behind   its   intelligence,  and  indicates 
pretty  distinctly  the  troubles  the  South  would  meet 
in  the  path  of  exclusive  self-control.     It  has  mistaken 
its  economical  policy  in  the  Union,  and   has  some 
times  appeared  to  be  more  bent  on  resisting  the  policy 
of  the  North  than  on  studying  its  own.     It  is  time 
for  the  South  to  understand  that,  as  it  claims  special 
consideration  for  a  peculiar  institution,  the  North  has 
also  a  peculiar  institution  —  a  large  mass  of  white 
laborers  —  for  whose  welfare    it   should   be  just  as 
anxious,  just  as  much  interested  as  the  South  is  for 


36       SOUTHERN    MONOPOLY     DEPARTING. 

its  large  mass  of  black  laborers.     The  wealth  of  both 
sections  depends  on  the  proper  employment  of  these 
two  classes  of  laborers.      The  laborers  of   England 
and  other  countries,  who  receive  far  less  wages,  £nter 
into  direct  competition  with  these  Northern  laborers; 
but  that  competition  has   hitherto  not  reached  the 
black  laborers,  who  have  enjoyed  a  long  monopoly. 
Led  astray  by  this  advantage,  the  South  has  expended 
its  whole  strength  upon  a  few  products,  and,  whilst 
enjoying  this  advantage,  it  has  resisted  inch  by  inch 
the  policy  which  Northern  labor  demanded.     In  this 
struggle,  the  nation  has  incurred  incalculable  loss  — 
loss  of  time,  of  skill,  experience,  money,  and  pro 
ductive  power.     The   parties   to  the   struggle   have 
borne  this  loss.     The  South  was  wrong,  and  has  suf 
fered  the  most.     The  United  States  might  by  this 
time  have  been  the  first  manufacturing  Power  in  the 
world  ;  they  possess  the  elements  for  this  ascendency. 
In  less  than  thirty  years  the  monopoly  of  the  South 
will  be  gone,  but  in  less  than  that  time  every  pound 
of  cotton  which  can  be  grown  in  the  United  States 
can  be  manufactured  here.*     The  South  is  now  de 
pendent  on  a  foreign  market  to  sell  in,  and  wishes 
to  be  dependent  on  a  foreign  market  to  buy  in.    Can 
any  man  of  common  foresight  fail  to  see  that  the 
South  should  provide  a  market  for  its  products  at 
home,  not  merely  in  the  United  States,  but  for  as 
large  a  portion  as  possible  at  her  own  door  ?     In  no 
way  could  Southern  money  be  better  expended  than 

*  Great  Britain  now  receives  one-quarter  of  her  supply  of  cotton 
from  other  countries,  and  one-fifth  of  the  whole  from  India.  This 
is  a  rapid  progress  in  cotton  culture.  The  quantity  received  from 
India  in  1854  was  1,619,058  cwts.,  or  404,764  bales. 


ENGLAND'S  POLICY  AS  TO  COTTON.     37 

on  premiums  on  cotton  goods  manufactured  in  the 
South.  Cotton  ropes,  cotton  bagging,  cotton  duck, 
and  drillings,  negro  clothing,  and  all  heavy  cotton 
goods,  should  be  largely,  if  not  wholly,  manufactured 
at  the  South.  Let  not  the  men  who  enter  this  career 
suffer  for  want  of  encouragement  or  capital.  They 
are  the  true  friends  of  the  South.  Let  not  the 
students  of  professorial  political  economy  be  heard  or 
heeded  against  this  plain  dictate  of  common  sense. 
The  South  may  find  it  as  profitable  to  sell  cotton  at 
home  as  in  England,  and  more  profitable  to  feed 
manufacturing  laborers  than  to  plant  cotton.  There 
is  no  profit  made  on  land  equal  to  that  made  by  feed 
ing  men  who  are  close  beside  the  farm. 

But,  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  past,  the  indica 
tions  are  clear  that  the  South  should  change  its 
policy,  and  vary  its  industry,  and  be  as  little  as  pos 
sible  at  the  mercy  of  the  enemies  of  slavery,  and 
especially  of  England,  the  capital  and  enterprise  of 
which  is  now  ransacking  the  earth  to  find  territory 
on  which  to  grow  cotton  and  be  rid  of  this  product 
of  slave-labor.  England  is  on  the  alert  looking  far 
ahead  for  more  cotton.  The  political  economy  of 
the  South  takes  no  note  of  this,  but  persists  in  think 
ing  and  acting  as  if  cotton  could  only  be  well  sold  in 
England,  and  as  if  the  market  there  could  never  fail 
nor  be  cut  off.  England  is  so  unwilling  to  be  de 
pendent  upon  a  single  country  for  the  chief  supply  of 
a  raw  material  so  important,  that  she  favors  the  cul 
ture  of  cotton  wherever  there  is  possibility  of  success. 
The  corresponding  policy  of  the  South  should  be  to 
stimulate  the  manufacture  of  cotton  in  every  part  of 
the  world,  so  as  not  to  be  dependent  on  England.  But, 


38      CONDITION    OF    NORTH    AND    SOUTH. 

no ;  the  South  has  favored  with  all  its  might  a  policy 
fatal  to  all  but  English  manufacturers,  and  has  evinced 
particular  aversion  to  the  cotton  manufactures  of  their 
own  country.     But  the  manufactures  of  the  North, 
under  all  the  opposition  and  unfriendly  regards  of 
the  South,  are  now  a  vastly  more  important  produc 
tive  power  than  the  negro  labor  of  the  South.     The 
income  of  the  North  for  each  head  of  the  population 
is  vastly  greater  than  that  of  the  South ;  the  trade 
of  the  North  is  far  the  greatest ;  the  cities  are  the 
largest ;    the  land  is  worth  two  or  three  times  as 
much  by  the  acre,  and  increasing  in  value  while  that 
of  the  South  is  going  down.      The  wealth,  power, 
and  productive  force  of  the  North  surpasses  that  of 
the  South  immensely.      It  is  the  division  of  labor, 
the  division  of  employment,  it  is  the  blended  agri 
cultural  and  manufacturing  industry  which  has  done 
this.     The  North  has  been  working  for  its  own  peo 
ple,  while  the  South,  like  Portugal  and  Ireland,  has 
been   working  for  England.      Both   these  countries 
have    had  full    enjoyment   of   the  cheap  goods    of 
England,  and  Ireland,  recently  more  than  decimated 
by  famine,  has  enjoyed  them  without  a  penny  of  duty. 
The  North  has  the  name  all  over  the  world  of 
knowing  how  to  make  money;  but  the  South  speci 
ally  fails  in  commercial  and  industrial  acuteness.    Let 
the  South  now  begin  to  study  its  own  interests,  not  in 
the  light  of  Say's  Political  Economy,  but  in  the  light 
of  common  sense  and  upon  the  facts  as  they  exist. 
Let  the  next  Southern  Convention  drop  the  subject 
of  commerce,  and  take  up  that  of  industry,  which 
comes  before  commerce ;    let   it   be  considered  how 
Southern  labor  can  be  made  more  productive  by  vary- 


SOUTHERN    COMMERCIAL    CONVENTIONS.     39 

ing  its  operations ;  how  it  can  be  made  more  self- 
dependent  and  less  sensitive  to  foreign  influences; 
what  can  be  done  in  that  way  by  individual  associa 
tion,  and  especially  what  must  be  done  for  that  end 
by  the  various  Legislatures.  Let  not  the  Convention 
fear  those  who  quote  Say  or  Smith.  The  meeting 
of  these  Southern  Commercial  Conventions  is  such  a 
violation  of  their  doctrines,  that  no  hesitation  need 
be  felt  at  further  rebellion.  Let  the  whole  Southern 
policy  be  studied  and  worked  out ;  then  come  with  it 
to  Congress,  prepared  to  give  as  well  as  to  take; 
ready  to  make  those  compromises  which  are  as  need 
ful  in  the  progress  and  policy  of  our  great  country 
as  in  its  original  Constitution. 

Whilst  the  South  has  been  fretting  and  fuming 
about  some  scores  of  fugitive  slaves,  worth  a  few 
thousands,  it  has,  by  its  mistaken  industrial  policy, 
lost  millions  on  millions.  It  is  time  this  subject  was 
reconsidered.  The  South  has  suffered  ;  but  why  let 
all  the  grief  and  all  the  wrath  take  the  direction  of 
the  fugitive  slaves  ?  If  the  North  had  encountered 
such  an  annoyance,  it  would  have  met  it  at  once  by 
an  insurance  company,  and  turned  over  the  whole 
business  of  pursuing  fugitive  slaves  to  the  agents  of 
a  corporation.  But,  no  !  the  wisdom  of  the  South  is 
of  that  kind  which  Burke  described,  when  speaking 
of  the  determination  of  England  to  subdue  her  re 
bellious  colonies.  He  said  it  reminded  him  of  the 
man  in  the  fable  who  would  shear  a  wolf.  He  had  a 
right  to  shear  it;  and  shear  it  he  would,  although  he 
got  bristles  in  place  of  wool,  and  lost  his  life  in  the 
attempt. 

Before  I  close  this  very  long  communication  per- 


40   OLD    VIEWS    OF    SLAVERY    REPUDIATED. 

mit  me  to  say  again,  that  I  have  no  words  to  ex 
press  my  estimate  of  the  folly — and,  I  may  add,  the 
danger  —  of  this  cry  of  disunion  from  the  South.     I 
had  hoped  that  Slavery  would  be  permitted  to  accom 
plish  peaceably  and  effectually  its  great  mission  of 
civilizing  and  training    to  industry  the  millions  of 
Africans  now  in  the  Southern  States,  and  that  the 
unhappy  agitation  which  exists  on    the   subject  of 
Slavery  would  subside  into  mere  exhortations  to  the 
masters   to  fulfil   their   duty  to   the   slaves,  or  into 
grave  enlightened  discussions  of  what   that  is  and 
how  it  should  be  performed.     I  had  hoped  that  it 
would  never  be  disputed,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the 
African  must  pay  for  his  education  by  his  personal 
services,  and  that  he  must  submit  to  that  personal 
discipline  necessary  for  his  training  to  civilized  life ; 
and  that  this  discipline  and   training  must  be  con 
tinued  until  the  African  had  undergone  the  physical, 
moral,  and  intellectual  change  which  would  fit  him 
to  take  his  place  among  civilized  nations,  and  to  be 
come  the  agent  for  a  like  process  in  Africa.     I  had 
hoped,  on  the  other  hand,  that  no  other  doctrine  of 
Slavery  would  be  propounded  or  defended  in  the 
South.     But  what  do  we  hear  now  from  that  quarter? 
The  views  of  Slavery  entertained   by  all  the  good 
and  great  men  of  the  South  down  to  thirty  years  ago 
are  scornfully  repudiated.    The  South,  or  rather  those 
who  presume    to    speak  for  the    South,  now  avows 
itself  the  friend  of  Slavery  on  purely  money-making 
or  industrial  principles,  making  it  such  a  question  as 
that  between  horses  and  mules,  or  between  machinery 
and  manual  labor.     The  man  is  utterly  lost  sight  of 
in  recent  demonstrations  on  the  subject  of  Slavery. 


NEW    DOCTRINE    OF    SLAVERY.  41 

The  African  is  in  theory  consigned  to  endless  bond 
age  ;  the  idea  of  his  gradual  improvement  seems  to 
be  abandoned.      The  doctrines  of  Slavery,  as  now 
avowed  by  many  who  profess  to  speak  the  sentiments 
of  the  South,  are  the  most  offensive  which  can  be 
conceived.     They   are    an    offence   to   the    civilized 
world,  and  if  continued  will  cut  off  all  sympathy 
between  the   South  and  the  civilized  world.     The 
day  may  come  when  these  doctrines  will  be  quoted 
with  fearful  effect  against    the  South.      If   we  can 
credit  these  men  who  affect  to  represent   Southern 
feeling,  the  South  is  now  a  great  slavery  propaganda, 
which  would  spread  that  institution  not  only  over  all 
the  unoccupied  territory  of  the  United  States,  but, 
if  possible,  over  the  free  States  and  throughout  the 
world,  asserting  that  the  form  of  society  now  exist 
ing  there,  including  Slavery,  is  a  model  for  all  the 
world,  and  that  society,  as  it  exists  elsewhere  and 
without    Slavery,  is  a  failure.      Admitting  all   the 
faults  and  failings  existing  in  society  without  Slavery, 
this  is   an  unpardonably  exaggerated  position.      It 
exhibits  an  excitement,  if  not  an  aberration  of  mind 
not   merely  inexcusable,   but   dangerous.      If    such 
doctrines  continue  to  be  propounded  in  the  South ; 
if  they  penetrate  the  minds  of  the  whole  people ;  if 
such  doctrines  find  their  way  into  the  legislation  and 
the  whole  public  policy  and  literature  of  the  South, 
then,  for  one,  I  shall  give  up  all  hope  of  the  true 
mission  of  Slavery  ever  being  fulfilled  there.     I  shall 
look  for  an  early  and  violent  end  of  the  institution 
in  the  United  States,  and  for  the  utter  ruin  and  pros 
tration  of  that  society  which  upholds  Slavery  as  a 
normal   industrial   institution.      The    South   cannot 


42         A    QUARREL    WITH    CHRISTENDOM. 

assume,  hold,  and  act  upon  that  principle  without  an 
undying  quarrel  with  the  North  and  with  the  whole 
civilized  world.  In  that  quarrel  Slavery  would  soon 
not  merely  succumb,  but  revenge  itself  signally  upon 
those  who  could  so  pervert  its  real  uses  and  shut 
their  eyes  to  its  proper  termination.  With  the  free, 
rich,  and  populous  States,  including  Canada  on  the 
north  and  the  free  States  of  Mexico  on  the  south, 
with  every  nation  in  Christendom  in  opposition  to 
Slavery  as  they  profess  it,  what  would  become  of  the 
South  ?  If  the  South  has  cause  of  irritation  now 
and  is  unable  to  subside  into  any  thing  like  repose, 
what  will  be  the  condition  of  things  when  all  the 
enemies  of  Slavery  are  unchained  ?  In  that  day  no 
man,  white  or  black,  can  travel  in  all  the  extent  of 
the  South  unquestioned;  and  a  police  as  rigid  as  that 
which  now  watches  over  Paris  will  extend  its  eyes 
and  arms  not  merely  over  the  cities,  but  throughout 
the  country.  No  man,  white  or  black,  can  go  where 
he  is  unknown  without  passport  and  letters.  The 
press  will  be  muzzled,  men's  mouths  will  be  muzzled, 
and  military  despotism  will  reign  where  any  thing 
reigns  but  anarchy. 

If  this  experiment  of  African  Slavery  in  the  Uni 
ted  States  comes  to  this  unhappy  end,  it  will  unques 
tionably  be  the  work  of  the  slaveholders,  and  it  will 
then  be  concluded  that  they  were  doomed  to  this  mad 
ness  as  the  precursor  of  destruction  to  them  and  their 
peculiar  institution.  Plow  unhappy  all  this  !  What 
human  woe  and  misery  would  be  involved  in  the 
titter  ruin  of  the  South  !  How,  then,  would  the 
whole  race  of  abolitionists  rejoice  in  what  they  would 
regard  as  the  just  judgment  of  Heaven  ! 


UNSCRUPULOUS    POLITICIANS.  43 

The  truth  is,  our  entire  country  has  Mien  into  the 
hands  of  politicians,  whose  whole  thoughts  are  bent 
upon  getting  into  office  and  remaining  in  office.  Our 
Legislatures,  State  and  National,  are  filled  with  men 
wholly  unfit  for  their  position,  men  too  much  bent 
upon  their  private  interests  to  think  of  public  con 
cerns,  and  incapable,  even  if  patriotic,  of  serving 
the  public  with  honor  to  themselves  or  advantage  to 
the  people.  Whatever  the  special  demerits  of  these 
unscrupulous  politicians,  there  is  one  of  their  prac 
tices  peculiarly  baneful  to  the  country.  They  seize 
upon  all  the  excitements,  anxieties,  desires  of  the 
people,  and  upon  all  their  great  leading  interests, 
upon  all  sectional  differences,  and  turn  them  into 
electioneering  topics  ;  they  inflame  every  excitement, 
deepen  every  anxiety,  exaggerate  every  desire,  mag 
nify  or  depress,  as  suits  them,  the  importance  of  every 
public  interest ;  they  widen  every  difference ;  they 
put  themselves  forward  as  the  champions  of  every 
cause,  and  make  the  impression  that  their  advocacy 
or  opposition  is  indispensable.  Whatever  the  differ 
ence,  the  politicians  of  both  North  and  South  are 
given  to  this  detestable  practice.  While  some  are 
blowing  up  the  excitements  of  abolitionism  in  the 
North,  others  are  playing  upon  the  natural  sensitive 
ness  in  the  South  on  the  subject  of  Slavery.  This 
game  has  been  played  in  the  South  until  the  whole 
country  is  ready  to  burst  into  a  flame.  How  far  this 
apparently  fierce  excitement  does  really  reach  the 
intelligent  and  virtuous  people  of  the  South,  it  is 
difficult  to  say;  but  there  is  reason  to  apprehend 
that  it  has  reached  a  dangerous  extent.  It  has  been 
fanned  and  fed  with  an  industry  very  likely  to  beget 


44  DESIRE    OF    EXPANSION. 

such  xesults.  The  dose  of  exaggeration,  dire  alarm, 
and  fiery  indignation,  yearly  administered  to  the 
nervous  system  of  the  people  of  the  South,  has  been 
with  eacli  occasion  increased  until  the  paroxysm  is 
imminent.  What  do  these  men  care  ?  If  disunion 
follow,  there  must  still  be  offices  and  power  and 
salaries,  all  accessible  by  the  same  practices. 

The  kind  of  emancipation  now  most  needed  at 
the  South  is  from  the  thraldom  of  this  excitement 
and  the  official  agency  of  these  bad  or  rash  men.  It 
is  also  needed  at  the  North ;  but  the  hazards  of  the 
game  are  widely  different  in  the  two  sections.  Let 
the  calm,  the  prudent,  and  wise  men  of  the  South 
betake  themselves  to  consideration ;  let  them  thrust 
from  their  presence  every  man  of  noise,  every  ex 
citement-monger,  every  disunionist.  Let  the  South 
think  no  more  of  conquering  new  States  and  adding 
more  territory,  but  rather  think  of  consolidating, 
enriching,  and  defending  the  wide  domain  already 
conquered.  The  policy  of  pursuing  new  conquests 
puts  the  whole  in  hazard. 

It  should  be  noted  that  all  the  value  added  by  the 
labor  of  slaves  to  new  territory  is  taken  from  the 
lands  whence  they  are  drawn.  For  every  new  plan 
tation  stocked  with  slaves,  an  old  one  is  sold.  The 
effect  of  a  great  emigration  of  slaves  is  a  mighty 
depreciation  of  the  lands  which  they  leave.  This 
may  not  be  visible  immediately,  but  the  effect  is 
inevitable.  Yet  such  is  the  mania  for  slave  power, 
that  this  impoverishing  process  is  either  not  per 
ceived  or  disregarded.  This  mighty  effort  to  extend 
Slavery  for  the  sake  of  political  power,  strikes  me 
painfully  in  reference  to  Southern  character.  Many 


A    REMEDY    PROPOSED.  45 

regard  every  thing  as  fair  in  politics;  but,  apart 
from  that,  there  certainly  does  appear  to  be  some 
thing  mean  and  unworthy  of  the  noble  character 
which  the  people  of  the  South  have  borne  in  times 
past,  in  this  incessant  effort  to  extend  the  area  of 
Slavery  for  the  sake  of  political  power.  It  cannot 
be  any  protection  to  Slavery;  for  power  gained  at 
the  expense  of  a  good  understanding  with  the  North 
cannot  be  any  protection ;  it  is  peril.  The  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States  and  its  friends  are  the  real 
protection  of  Slavery.  The  alienation  of  those 
friends  is  a  work  to  which  some  men  in  the  South 
seem  now  seriously  devoted,  the  disastrous  effects  of 
which  no  slave  power  can  avert. 

The  subject  of  fugitive  slaves,  in  presence  of  these 
more  important  considerations,  is  of  small  conse 
quence.  Take  care  of  the  millions,  and  there  will 
be  less  trouble  about  the  scores;  but  take  care  of 
them  at  any  rate,  for  they  are  in  danger,  and  that 
danger  involves  perils  so  great  that  those  who  would 
encounter  them  without  just  cause  cannot  be  warned 
in  terms  too  strong. 

These  evils  are  not  without  remedy.  Let  wise 
and  prudent  men  of  the  North  and  South  take  up  at 
once  the  whole  of  their  sectional  differences.  A  con 
vention  of  a  score  from  each  side,  not  being  politi 
cians  or  candidates  for  any  office,  assembled  to  con 
sult  upon  the  interests  of  the  whole  country,  cculd 
in  a  fortnight  or  two  devise  a  system  of  policy  touch 
ing  these  differences  and  the  great  interests  of  the 
country,  the  adoption  of  which  could  be  secured; 
and,  whilst  tranquillity  and  progress  would  be 
assured  at  home,  the  moral  power  of  the  country 


46       EFFECT  OF  A  TRUE  POLICY. 

throughout  the  world,  now  seriously  impaired  and 
diminished,  would  be  restored.  Under  such  a  policy 
the  career  of  this  country  in  arts,  in  industry,  in 
power,  and  it  might  be  hoped  in  justice  and  mode 
ration,  would  far  exceed  any  anticipations  ever  yet 
formed. 


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